Paris Concealed: Masks in the City of Light. By James H. Johnson

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has brought masks back into focus of public attention. However, when we think of masks as accessories rather than medical necessities, they are most often associated with Venice, whose history of masquerades and carnivals Johnson explored in his previous book. Some may think of Rio de Janeiro, where festive masks are typically paired with flamboyant and elaborately feathered costumes worn by performers during carnival season. Yet, how many recall the glamorous bal masqué in Paris during the Belle Époque—even though the vintage posters sold by bouquinistes along the Seine and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera from time to time provide glimpses of this rich cultural tradition? This makes Paris Concealed: Masks in the City of Light timely and valuable. Throughout this engaging and well-illustrated study of masks in Paris from Louis XIV’s period to the threshold of the twentieth century, the term ‘mask’ has multiple meanings. It first refers to the physical mask. Since the reign of Louis XIV, performers, aristocrats (including the king himself!), unaccompanied women, carnival revelers, criminals and rioters all wore masks, though for varied purposes. Johnson demonstrates that masks both concealed and revealed. For example, at ordered masked balls at Versailles, these face-covering accessories in fact disclosed more than they could hide, creating a space in which every masker’s identity was known but not always acknowledged. The word also means deliberate disguise. During the nineteenth century, when most traditional markers of identity were disappearing, the ancient science of physiognomy had enjoyed renewed attention. False hair, artificial beards or mustache, misleading costumes and altered gait and voice proved useful to those (e.g. impostors and criminals) who assumed false identities and sought to pass unnoticed.